'Ambassadors' not governors

The plan to allow trusts to remove all parent governors is part of the White Paper on academies, published before the latest plans for another change of direction in the Green Paper on grammar schools.

But under existing academy rules, chains are not required to have parent governors in individual schools.

These were replaced by parent "ambassadors" who do not have the powers of scrutiny held by governors.

They have a role "celebrating the academy's achievements" rather than holding the school to account.

E-Act had itself faced questions over standards, when in 2014 the academy chain lost control of 10 of its schools after Ofsted inspectors raised serious concerns about their performance.

The levels of scrutiny of academy chains has remained controversial.

Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw has called for the education watchdog to be able to inspect academy chains, in the way that local education authority education services can be inspected.

E-Act said that the current arrangements improved "parental involvement" in their schools and that there were no plans to reintroduce parent governor roles that were removed earlier this year.

"One of the principal drivers of the changes we made to how our academies are governed was to enhance parental involvement in the life of our academies. This model is working," said an E-Act spokesman.